Comparing urban footprint of Lahore and Karachi

Abstract

Pakistan is the most urbanised country in South Asia. While the official figures rather undercount the level of urbanisation in the country, the current share of urban population is estimated around 40 percent of the total population. It is not only our cities and town that are expanding continuously and rapidly, our rural settlements are also growing in size. Most of the discussion on Pakistan’s urbanisation is based on population size. The actual geographical area of the cities is almost always ignored in this debate on urban growth. The spatial characteristics of cities are little discussed because of the general lack of appropriate data — and enthusiasm of analysts — to do so. Being an urban researcher and spatial analyst, I am quite curious to learn about the way our cities spread on ground and how they compare with each other.